Slashdot Mirror
iMovie 3 & iDVD: The Missing Manual
I have previously reviewed iPhoto2: The Missing Manual and said "The target audience for this book would probably be a little less technical than myself or the average Slashdot reader, however when I find myself in a field I don't understand well I don't mind a little stuff for the absolute newbie" -- and once again this is true. iMovie 3 & iDVD: The Missing Manual finds me in an area where I am technically inferior. Once again I truly appreciated this book and its style.
The book is broken up into four sections, one devoted to video cameras and shooting a movie, a large one on editing in iMovie 3, and smaller sections on exporting out of iMovie 3 and on using iDVD. At the end are two useful appendices: the first is a menu-by-menu look at iMovie 3, and the second is an iMovie 3 troubleshooting guide. The latter is often needed and always useful -- iMovie 3 still has more than one bug.
The first section gives a great deal of incredibly useful information about video cameras and how to use them, including hints on various types of shooting such as sporting events, interviews and weddings. The technical information on cameras is perfect if you have yet to buy a camera, including a guide to which features are essential and which unnecessary as you can do the same thing (only better) in iMovie 3. When it goes on to the 'how to shoot' section, you get pretty much the same advice you'll get anywhere, but since we didn't really read all of from the last book on video we read (and forgot half the bits we did read) it's nice to have it there again.
The second section does a good job of explaining the details of iMovie 3, even down to some of its shortcomings and bugs. I also appreciated the way it spent as much time on improving the quality of the finished film as it did telling me how to use the various parts of the software. It follows a logical sequence through the movie-making process, giving good details on how iMovie does the job, how to get the best result and what sort of things to avoid -- particularly useful for things like transitions and effects when less is best.
The third section, titled "Finding Your Audience," is a bit more of a problem. It really has nothing to do with finding an audience and a lot more to do with QuickTime. The section first spends ten pages telling us how to get our edited film back onto the camcorder or onto a VCR, then it spends a lot of time dealing with exporting to QuickTime, including posting movies to the web and some info on using the QuickTime player, including some "tricks" with QuickTime Player Pro.
The attention to the finished product in the second section carries through to the fourth section on iDVD, though the writing here is not quite as good. It is incredibly informative, however. I learned a great deal about putting together all sorts of iDVD projects, including ways of customizing almost every aspect of the finished product.
O'Reilly have the usual marketing stuff while Pogue Press have the handy little Missing CD section with links to all the free and shareware software mentioned in the book. Neither has a sample chapter or the table of contents, you can't even get either at Amazon.
One of the drawbacks of getting free software is that we don't get good free documentation. One of the benefits of free software is that we can choose which 'documentation' to buy. Some people might prefer the style of the 'Dummies' books, others the style of Peachpit's Visual Quickstart Guide. I've had a look at all three and like the balance of depth and explanation that Pogue has in his 'Missing Manual' series. I once again find myself recommending a 'Missing Manual' to everyone. While catering to the beginner, this book goes deep enough that all but the most long-term user of these two pieces of software will find something to learn in this volume.
You can purchase iMovie 3 & iDVD: The Missing Manual from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Oh, I'm a Republican
I got a small schling
I like to bomb niggahs
and make a lot o' bling
I got a bunch o' friends
in high up places
They helps me get dem
government graces.
You think I'm smart
I just know who's who
I couldn't run a fruit stand
without the red white & blue
I fancy myself
A brilliant tactician
But neither me nor m'buddies
Could even pass basic trainin'
See, I'm above all that
A fightin' and shootin'
I just say "Sic em!"
Then run the other direction
Don't need no history
Don't need no schoolin'
I got my ideology
To keep me a shootin'
Liberals! Faggots!
Commies and queers!
Socialist hippies
Full o' pussy tears!
I'll drop some crap
about Jesus the Christ
You'll buy it all
and vote for me twice
'Fact, Jesus is comin'!
Real soon, now!
So we gotta prop up Israel
That ol' sacred cow
Propaganda's m'friend
But I calls it "fact"
Even though I don't read
'Cept for Chick tracts
Facts? No! Don't need em here!
We're conservatives! We work on FEAR!
Don't like what we say?
Well FUCK YOU, bud!
We'll shove it down yer throat
and tell ya it's good!
God Bless America, with the worst crime levels in the first world
God Bless America, where "democracy" means a rich, white male as Presiden t
God Bless America, the biggest consumer of the world's natural resources
God Bless America, where "freedom of speech" means race-hate groups like KKK
God Bless America, and its massive and ever-growing poverty gap
God Bless America, with the highest obesity levels in the developed world
God Bless America, all its appalling "sitcoms" with no grasp of irony
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God Bless America, wasting billions to attack foreign countries
God Bless America, and thank God I don't have to live there.
Indeed.
Have you seen the stats? 90% of slashdot users use windows or mac's
Not saying that nobody here is a tech, but honestly, the majority are actually not really techs.
Your assumption seems to be that someone who uses a Windows or Mac machine is not technical. Care to back that up?
All these little i's in the posts are giving me flashbacks of my early days with my TI-99/4A
when my dad tried in vain to teach me to program.
100 for i=1 to 10
110 print i
120 i=i+1
130 if i11 goto 100
140 end
yup, fun stuff.
Your program won't work. It'll just keep prining out 1's indefinitely.
(I'm assuming that you forgot or HTML ate your less-than sign in line 130. Even so, it still won't work.)
You never closed your "for" loop with a "next." Instead, you cobbled together two ways of doing the same thing, repeatedly sending the program from line 130 to 100, where i gets re-set to 1 every time. You needed to either:
100 for i=1 to 10; print i; next; end
or:
100 i=1
110 print i; i=i+1
120 if i=11 then end
130 goto 110
The second example is not particularly elegant, but it'll work.
I don't have "hair" either....
Whatever... arrg.. existance... why can't a bus just skip a curb once...
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.